Melbourne, Australia – On the industrial fringe, one factory making solar energy hot-water tanks has become a meeting point for the environmental movement and the moribund manufacturing industry.  

While the Eureka’s Future factory looks identical to others lining the street, inside young environmentalists from the inner city and lifelong hardened factory workers from the suburbs are transforming this former private company into a not-for-profit, workers-owned cooperative.

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/06/australia-green-energy-recession-150608074408692.html

Melbourne, Australia –  A portrait of a thoughtful Malcolm X overlooks the chaotic office space in the heart of the city. It is home to a refugee-run organisation fighting to reframe Australia’s asylum seeker debate.

At a desk amid the stacked boxes and clutter sits Ramesh Fernandez, the founder ofRISE: Refugees Survivors and Ex-Detainees, an organisation that provides services to refugees and advocates for policy change.

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/06/challenging-australia-refugee-narrative-150621100410664.html

Melbourne, Australia – In Christian majority countries like Australia, Easter is usually a time of family gatherings and celebration.

However, a day before Easter Sunday, hundreds of people took to the streets in major Australian cities to protest against what they see as the rising influence of Islam.

Under the banner “Reclaim Australia”, protesters, many waving Australian flags, chanted against Islamic law and held signs reading “No More Mosques” and “Islam is an Enemy of the West.”

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/unease-australia-islamophobia-150409075748404.html

(Jakarta) – Indonesian Ahmadis are no strangers to persecution, with attacks and discrimination rife, but leader Iskandar Gumay hopes better days are ahead for the minority Muslim sect under new President Joko Widodo.

The cleric has witnessed attempts to torch his mosque and seen worshippers elsewhere prevented from burying their dead, however he believes a draft law shows Indonesia’s leader is committed to tackling religious intolerance.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has seen its image as tolerant and pluralist suffer due to a spike in religious violence. As well as Ahmadis, minority Muslim Shiites and Christians have been targeted in the Sunni-majority country.

Full article – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2939127/Indonesias-minorities-hope-safer-future-Widodo.html

Sydney, Australia – The indigenous people of Australia constitute only 2.5 percent of the country’s total population, however, 27 percent of those in prison across the country are of Aboriginal heritage.

The rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration is now 18 times higher than that of non-indigenous Australians.

Last month, the Law Council of Australia declared the rate of indigenous imprisonment, which has grown by more than 50 percent in the last decade, a“national emergency”. 

But for many indigenous people, this crisis in the relationship between their communities and the criminal justice system is nothing new.

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/australia-indigenous-incarceration-crisis-2014121472549972623.html

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/malaysia-indigenous-hit-hard-deforestation-150329101349832.html